My dirty life and times.

August 2010

August 05, 2010

Sure, I'm happy for all the Californians who can now join the ranks of the married, regardless of the genetic soup their parents ordered up from the vast menu of life, love and "lifestyle." And darnit, if Judge Vaughn Walker's decision in the landmark Proposition 8 case wasn't coldly and brilliantly reasoned, leaving virtually no path for the anti-marriage squadrons except the strange and non-legal "it just ain't normal, judge!" course. (We'll enjoy Elana Kagan's reaction to that particular oral argument). And yeah, the spectacularly odd legal couple of David Boies and Ted Olson is a stirring Movie of the Week in the making - too bad Matthau and Lemmon belong to the ages. But I also have to agree with the sharp-eyed Roy Edroso that "anything that gets Kathryn J. Lopez palpably shaking with rage brightens my day."

Visions
of same-sex in Berkeley (with the Jefferson Airplane on the stereo and
the smell of patchouli in the air) will leave K-Lo thrashing on the
daybed in her office for weeks to come.

Yeah, it's a good day. So let's all give thanks to Ronald Reagan of sainted memory and his minion Ed Meese for their vision in appointing Judge Walker, and Poppy Bush for elevating him to the Federal bench.

August 03, 2010

That the Ground Zero Mosque in question is neither at Ground Zero nor a mosque seems a convenient pair of facts for the predictable chorus of elderly, mouth-foaming Islam-baiters currently braying in and around New York to ignore. But ancient right-wing imams named Lieberman, Gingrich, King and Giuliani jerked their crinkly replacement knees anyway, stepping in time to the fiddle played by Rupe's New York Post in what can only be viewed as a revival show put on in summer stock for little old ladies with blue hair.

It's all so old, so predictable, so lame, and so utterly bereft of any principles having anything at all to do with the human freedoms this little American experiment of ours are supposed to encourage. It's a tidy little package of intolerance wrapped in yesterday's news, a little blue pill for old-timey hatred hard-ons to go with book tours and cocktails at '21.'

Then there's what can only be described as the weaselly attitude of the ADL which, as Greg Sargent points out, seemingly favors a one-mile No Mosque Zone around the site of the 9/11 attacks. And it's hard for anyone to argue with Peter Beinart's reaction to the ADL's strange move:

The ADL’s rationale for opposing the Ground Zero mosque is that
“building an Islamic Center in the shadow of the World Trade Center will
cause some victims more pain—unnecessarily—and that is not right.” Huh?
What if white victims of African-American crime protested the building
of a black church in their neighborhood? Or gentile victims of Bernie
Madoff protested the building of a synagogue? Would the ADL for one
second suggest that sensitivity toward people victimized by members of a
certain religion or race justifies discriminating against other,
completely innocent, members of that religion or race? Of course not.
But when it comes to Muslims, the standards are different.

But it's not hard at all to argue with Michael Bloomberg. The Mayor has stood tall in the saddle on the so-called Ground Zero Mosque - actually an Islamic cultural and community center two blocks away from the current construction site that may or may not include a prayer room - from the very beginning. Bloomberg deserves praise as well as the thanks of cool-headed New Yorkers who value our wildly multicultural city. There was zero weasel in the kind of statements the Mayor has peppered the media with over the past couple of months; here's two of the menschiest:

"Muslims are as much a part of our city and country as any faith - and
as welcome to worship in Lower Manhattan as any other group. This is as important a test of
the separation of church and state as any we may see in our lifetime,
and it's critical we get it right."

[snip]

"What is great about America and particularly New York is we
welcome everybody, and if we are so afraid of something like this, what
does that say about us? Democracy is
stronger than this. You know the ability to practice your religion was
one of the real reasons America was founded. And for us to just say no
is just, I think, not appropriate is a nice way to phrase it .
. . If you are religious, you do not want the government picking
religions, because what do you do the day they don't pick yours?"

Can't say it better than that. Haven't always agreed with Bloomberg. But his sincere lack of wiggle and straightforward, clear-headed policy here can't be overlooked. So what of the planned Cordoba House, the American Society for Muslim Advancement and its "controversial" founder Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf? ThinkProgress has the brief:

While the project has received considerable support from New York state and citypoliticians, it has also been praised by local religious leaders, Jewish and Christian.
And if Abdul Rauf is so anti-American as Cheney and Kristol say, why
would the FBI praise his cooperation with the agency after 9/11? “We’ve
had positive interactions with him in the past,” an agency spokesperson said.

When President Bush said they hate our freedom in 2001, he was right. And some still do.

My Dirty Life & Times

Tom Watson is a journalist, author, media critic, entrepreneur and consultant who has worked at the confluence of media technology and social change for more than 20 years. This long-running blog is my personal outlet - an idiosyncratic view of the world. "My dirty life and times" is a nod to the late, great Warren Zevon because some days I feel like my shadow's casting me.